Making memories at Christmas

Well just look what has sneaked upon us. Not winter, even though it has been unusually cold this year and so early. It is Christmas that has sneaked upon us. Can anyone believe that it is Christmas already? Well almost 365 days ago we were celebrating Christmas 2012 and in just a few days we will be celebrating the Christmas of 2013. The Christmases do begin to stack up, don't they?

Christmas brings the child out in everyone. We all remember when we were kids at Christmas time. We all remember the anticipation of Santa Claus, the birth of Jesus Christ and the magic of the Christmas spirit. That is what Christmas is all about. It brings the memories of yesteryear with us also. Those memories, good or bad, are there for everyone to pull out.

The memories of those trips to grandmother's house. Those are precious and everyone has a specific one, don't they? Remember all of those fresh baked pies, those aromas coming from the kitchen that made you so hungry. That is the visit to grandmother's house during the holidays. Every family has their own memory and believe me we still can remember after all of those years.

My Grandmother and Grandfather Austin in DeWitt always had their house open to us for Christmas. We started to arrive there around 11 a.m. My cousins from Texas were always there when we arrived because they had stayed there over night or with relatives in and around the DeWitt area. Because there were so many kids there we always had fun and our grandmother always made it fun.

I remember one time, when she was cooking and I was down there when I was much older, she had a number of pots boiling on the stove counter and watching all of them at one time.

She would taste them and throw some ingredients in the pots, like salt, pepper or some herbs. I asked her, "How much did you put in there Grandma?" She would reply, "a pinch of this and a pinch of that." I just looked at her. I knew she knew what she was doing because everything tasted so good.

My grandparents never bought a tree from the local merchants. My relatives went out in the country and cut her a tree or she went out and picked out the tree to put in her house. That was how Christmas was spent at our Grandparents Austin's house. They always bought our parents gifts, which weren't much, maybe some things for the house, sheets, linens or towels, but always something. The kids got $1 each. This was when $1 went a lot further than it does now. We were all excited. This was say 50 or 55 years ago.

Life was much simplier back then. I also remember one time when we stayed over and we boys were altogether in one room and somehow Grandpa got in there. We were all lying on pallets, remember what that was? Anyway, We all rolled our eyes when Grandpa was in the room. We asked him why he was there and why we were going to bed so early. It had to be around 7 or maybe 7:30 p.m. He told us we needed to go to bed early because Santa Claus was on his way.

Page 2 of 2 - We were of different ages from five to around 12 or 13, maybe 15 or 16. I don't think anyone was any older. We all had fun and didn't know any different. My grandparents in DeWitt didn't have much money back then, but we didn't care besides the house always seemed like it was very comfortable. The house was torn down just in the past year or two. Only memories are there now. That is the way it should be.

Christmas is that magical time when you make memories. I made a special memory with someone. I took her shopping each Chirstmas from when she was 2 years old until she was maybe 17, when that stopped. That is a special memory and you can do that too. MERRY CHRISTMAS!